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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

The Arab Spring is a bad example if you're trying to say that the US is installing governments... South America's history provides far better examples.

That said, the US doesn't need to be perfect to still be an example of providing freedom for its own citizens.

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There’s a lot of examples, yes in South America too, but the US helped replace or tried to help replace some governments during the Arab Spring. Libya being the biggest example, where the US and its allies imposed a no fly zone to help topple a dictator it didn’t like [0]. It could have done that in other places, but you didn’t hear a peep from the US when those protests were crushed by their governments during the Arab Spring.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...

Libya is a super super bad example if you're looking for bad US behavior. This is literally the very first sentence of your own source:

> On 19 March 2011, a NATO-led coalition began a military intervention into the ongoing Libyan Civil War to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 (UNSCR 1973).

Compared to the South America stuff, this is saintly and angelic behavior helping out the world in every way. It's not the US alone, it's a coalition that expands beyond NATO, there's a UN resolution...

In fact bringing this up as a "bad behavior" example proves just how much of a shining city on a hill the US has been around the world. It's been bad, but it's also done lots of good stuff.

I don't think you're understanding what OP actually said. They didn't cite the Libya example as an example of bad behaviour; there wasn't any value statement on it at all. They were saying the fact that they intervened in Libya but not elsewhere was an example of the US intervening when it suits them.

I'm not an expert in US foreign policy so I'll refrain from entering the debate itself, I just think you're not arguing against what the OP is actually saying.

> Libya is a super super bad example if you're looking for bad US behavior. This is literally the very first sentence of your own source:

> > On 19 March 2011, a NATO-led coalition

Contradicting yourself ?

In what way does cutting off the sentence create a contradiction? You'll need to at least point out some words that are a contradiction, or address some of the words in my comment.

for its own citizens that were fortunate enough to be born at the right place at the right time. how should the rest of the world feel about the US if they get all the freedoms, comforts and opportunities and the rest of the world doesn’t?

Is that a country to be admired by all others or resented.

States don't have friends, only interest (of transforming humans in bomb targets and genocide victims).

> States don't have friends, only interest

Quite the opposite. Actually states don't have interests - interest groups do - and those of them who are friends with the state get to install theirs as the state's.

> states don't have interests - interest groups do

People have interests. To promote those interests, they organise. Sometimes as interest groups within states. Sometimes as business corporations. Sometimes as states.

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